“Pelléas et Mélisande”, opera, CD 93 (L 88)

“Pelléas et Mélisande”, opera.

Composed: 1893-02.

Opera in five acts to Maurice Maeterlinck’s French libretto, set in the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde. First performed at the...Read more

“Pelléas et Mélisande”, opera.

Composed: 1893-02.

Opera in five acts to Maurice Maeterlinck’s French libretto, set in the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde. First performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 30 April 1902. André Messager conducted; Mary Garden sang Mélisande and Jean Périer sang Pelléas.

The principal characters are Arkel, the old king (bass); his grandsons Golaud (baritone) and Pelléas (a high baritone or tenor); Geneviève, their mother (mezzo-soprano or contralto); Mélisande (soprano); Yniold, Golaud’s young son (treble or soprano); and a physician (bass). Debussy adapted Maeterlinck’s play without turning it into a conventional succession of arias. The orchestra, restrained vocal declamation and recurring motifs sustain the drama’s atmosphere of uncertainty, desire and foreboding.

Act I. Golaud loses his way while hunting in a forest and discovers a frightened young woman beside a spring. She is Mélisande, but she refuses to explain her origins or the crown lying in the water. Golaud marries her and writes to his half-brother Pelléas asking whether Arkel will receive them. At the castle, Geneviève reads the letter to the king, who accepts Golaud’s decision. Mélisande meets Pelléas and watches the departing ship that brought her to Allemonde; the gardens and the sea already suggest confinement and separation.

Act II. Pelléas takes Mélisande to the Fountain of the Blind. While playing with her wedding ring, she drops it into the water. At the same moment Golaud is thrown from his horse. When he later notices the missing ring, Mélisande says she lost it in a seaside grotto. He orders her to look for it, and Pelléas accompanies her. In the dark grotto they find three sleeping beggars; its desolation gives a new weight to Mélisande’s fear and unease.

Act III. Mélisande sings at a tower window while combing her long hair. Pelléas reaches up to her, and her hair falls around him. Golaud interrupts them, outwardly dismissing their intimacy as childish behaviour. He then takes Pelléas down into the castle vaults and shows him a dangerous chasm. Back in daylight he warns his brother to avoid Mélisande, who is expecting a child. Golaud’s suspicion becomes more obsessive. He questions his son Yniold about the couple and lifts the boy to a window to spy on them. The terrified child can only report that they are standing together and looking at one another.

Act IV. Pelléas announces that he must leave and asks Mélisande for a final meeting at the fountain. Arkel speaks kindly to her, hoping that the castle’s unhappiness may finally end. Golaud enters with a wound on his forehead. Tormented by jealousy, he humiliates Mélisande and drags her by the hair. Later Yniold loses his golden ball among the rocks and questions a shepherd about a flock of sheep being driven away. At the fountain, Pelléas and Mélisande at last confess their love. The castle gates close, and they sense Golaud approaching in the darkness. He kills Pelléas with his sword and pursues the fleeing Mélisande.

Act V. Mélisande has given birth to a daughter and lies dying. Arkel, Golaud and the physician are with her. Golaud, torn between remorse and continuing jealousy, asks whether she loved Pelléas and whether their love was innocent. She answers that she loved him, but cannot give Golaud the certainty he demands. Their baby is brought to her; Mélisande pities the child and dies quietly. Arkel asks that she be left in peace and turns to the newborn girl, whose life must now continue.

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